Chapter 246

—

Things… are never so peaceful. Not for Amon at least.

It's been two days since Raki entered Amon's room. They have been continuing since, and only their sound didn't only reach the Skypiea… it also reached someone else.

In the forever quiet Palace, Imu-sama sat on his throne while looking down on the five elders kneeling in front of him.

"Is it ready?"

His ethereal voice asked. The elders simply nodded.

"I wouldn't say he is at his weakest," Imu said. "But he has his guard down for the moment, more than ever in fact. He seems to really care about that girl."

The elders nodded again, though they didn’t understand half his words.

With a hum, Imu ordered in a bored but dominating voice. "Prepare Uranus and fire towards Skypiea. With the Emperor busy, there would be no one to protect that piece of land. Even if he somehow avoids it, his people will take a huge hit."

With another nod, the elders nodded, stood up and walked away at Imu's permission.

As they left, Imu tilted his head and pondered a little.

"..."

He was always the type to use underhanded tactics. But there was no need for that until now, his underlings were enough for any problems. But now, he was starting to see a need… Amon would be a thorn in his path after he gets freed. He didn’t realise that before, so he didn’t see the need to eliminate Amon until a few years, and even months ago. But… Now, Amon was growing too strong.

The show he gave in Marineford was of course nowhere close to Imu. But Amon was only 22 or 23, and if he was already this strong… Imu knew he would be a major problem a few decades later when he believed he would be finally free because the Haki of Joyboy would run out.

Currently, just two weeks after the war, Amon was stronger than before again.

He now had multiple devil fruits.

Though Imu didn’t know which. Haki can block Haki, in that same way, the basic Observation Haki can be blocked using a veil of will too. Amon, under that veil, had done something which gave him and his sister multiple Devil Fruits.

Imu didn't like Devil Fruits, it was beneath him. But he still had to admit that it was a revolutionary discovery. If only he could see through that Veil that Amon had put… 

Although old he was, Imu wasn't omnipotent. Looking over tens of thousand miles away, even his level of haki was blocked by someone as weak as Amon. Even then, he could peek inside. But that would mean breaking Amon's veil, which would alarm the Emperor of Imu's existence.

Imu didn't believe Amon knew of his existence, so there was no need to change that anytime soon.

Instead, Amon should rather die.

Chuckling, and with threads of Haki following the Elders, Imu kept observing the old men.

—★—

 The Five Elders went down a secret tunnel leading at the centre of the Redline below Mariejois. There was a vacant space inside the Redwall in that spot, where something big stood.

A huge metallic space battleship stood in the middle of the vacant space, taking almost the entirety of the place.

It was Uranus, the ancient weapon.

Uranus was at the hands of the Government for a long time. It just wouldn't make sense otherwise. If they couldn't even retrieve one weapon in a span of 800 years, they should have no spine to declare themselves as the supreme power of this world.

Unlike its two siblings, Uranus wasn't made on the Earth. It originated from the Moon, instead. It's the spaceship that the Lunarians stole when they ran from the Moon from under the grasp of Ancient Skypieans.

After that, as millennia passed, the Lunarians upgraded the spaceship with powers beyond even the Moon inhabitants. The firepower in this weapon, because of the Lunarian enhancements, was truly extraordinary even amongst the Ancient Weapons.

This was what helped the Lunarians to rule over Earth for so long until Imu came in.

Today, after centuries, this weapon was going to be used again.

The huge hall the Ship was kept in was filled with many electronic things. A cockpit stood in the middle of the hall, it controlled everything inside the hall, even the walls of Redline in this particular spot.

With a simple click in the cockpit from the bald Elder, the wall at the left side slowly slid down. It made a sound as if dozens of sea kings were roaring at once, but nobody seemed to react to it because of the distance this place was from any civilization.

The night starry sky appeared from the other side, and the Elders took in a breath of fresh air.

They then discussed some things between themselves.

"You think this will work…?"

"What, are you questing Imu-sama?!"

"T-that's not what I meant. Stop making me seem like a traitor!"

"Stop, you two!"

The small commotion stopped as the Elders grumbled and sighed between themselves.

Then shrugging, the bald elder went inside the battleship. He clicked some buttons, turning the machine on. It took some minutes for the weapon to start after centuries.

"Let's just see what that brat can do against this…"

The bald elder, whose head had an imprint of Amon's knuckles literally engraved, grumbled out.

After another small exchange, he then targeted all the weapons of the ship at where Skypiea should be, according to Imu-sama who talked to him telepathically, something even the Elders couldn’t know how to do. 

It took another few minutes for the weapons to focus at Skypiea, and then another few to charge all the attacks at their full power.

This barrage of attack could and had in the past taken out islands at a single sweep. There was no escaping this, now that he had locked target with Skypiea, even being tens of thousands of kilometres away.

"Fire!"

At the dark-skinned elder's command, the bald one fired the ancient weapon. A huge beam of light and fire so hot that it turned into plasma, left for Skypiea at light speed.

Light, heating up to million degrees leapt at the sky in a round and large beam. Each kilometre it passed, the larger and stronger the beam got. 

That was one of the special benefits of this weapon because of the Lunarian bloodline enhancements. Its beams were a special type of plasma which burned the air and then consumed it to strengthen itself even further. If given enough distance to cover, it could even take down Emperors like Kaido with one blow. 

With each passing second, it brightened the night sky as if an artificial sun and went at Skypiea at the speed of light.

 More seconds passed and it got bigger than a medium-sized island.

Shandora, or previously known as Upperyard, was a… middle-sized island.

Before the eyes of the Elders, a huge explosion happened as clouds blasted away from the impact point. Causing the night sky to bright up at the mushroom of a bright explosion.

"With that, Skypiea is destroyed."

The bald elder released a deep breath. He half expected the beam to just dissipate knowing the strangeness of Amon. But based on the explosion, it meant it did hit something solid in the sky. And in the way of the beam… only one solid thing stood.

Skypiea.

—★—

Minutes ago

Amon and Raki were sleeping beside each other. A pleasant smile on both their faces. They had their arms wrapped around each other. 

The room was still cloudy from before, so from an outside perspective, they looked as if they were sleeping in heaven. It was truly a precious moment, worth enough to be contained inside a camera.

“...!”

Amon's eyes leapt up in pure shock and horror.

He was sleeping, meaning his clones were turned off. So he couldn't sense the hot beam of plasma coming towards Skypiea - not until now, when it’s clearly too late.

Multiple choices popped up in his mind, and he grew restless. If even a second passed, the light would reach this place, so he needed to be quick.

The easiest option was to just teleport, as he couldn't outrun the beam normally. But his eyes dropped down to Raki and a huge frown appeared on his face. 

'Another reason why I don't like getting attached to anyone… Goddamit.'

He can’t teleport with human beings, and moving at a speed where she would be safe will be… too slow.

With a clench of his jaws, pushing away the part of him that wanted to escape, he immediately put his hands towards the direction where the beam was coming from.

It's not as if he would die. No single attack would be able to kill an Emperor with a body made like Big Mom's, even so, his Logia body was resistant to great heat anyway. He could tell the heat incoming was more than his own, but any injuries would be healed by the Phoenix fire of Reincarnation... unless he died immediately.

But no beam of light would be able to kill someone with a body similar to Big Mom… 

Raki on the other hand, without being in her Zoan form, would be vaporised.

A barrier of physic force leapt up from his palm, covering the bed in a dome. This was the same technique he used against Yamato just after he awakened his fruit. But now, it was enhanced with all his Haki. Unfortunately, he would be dry of any Haki after this. So if it’s a larger scale enemy attack… he would run with Raki immediately.

He sighed again. He was right. He should never get attached to anyone else. He would stop here. No need to entangle himself in meaningless responsibilities.

Immediately, the force of the sun crashed into him the next instant. His world went too bright for his eyes, light the heat of million degrees Celsius clouding and painting the surrounding yellow.

His barrier stopped it all.

For the first five seconds.

Then it cracked and split apart, but Amon’s eyes couldn’t see it. His body got engulfed in pure brilliant plasma, burning at a million degrees, as he felt even his cells start to burn up.

Then, the world went silent, and Amon’s body turned to ashes…

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